| My rant on 'FWD cars are wrong' again [message #81129] |
Mon, 19 April 2010 20:53  |
JohnL455
Messages: 4447
Registered: October 2006
Location: Woodstock, IL
Karma:
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I know that FWD is what makes the TZE the TZE and we all know the handling quirks it can have if not all just set up right, but this applies to the passenger car automotive side of things. I witness the same accident scenario again and had to do the 'NASCAR drive through it' and my XJ and I escaped unharmed. First time was on the 405 watching a Japanese FWD car (Altima???) where the guy over corrected the wheel on bone dry pavement and on the 3rd oscillation ate the center wall HARD, VERY HARD. I drove around that one. Then this weekend Sat at noon in Chicago while I was coming from a work location downtown, on bone dry pavement a GrandAm gets drifty and too close to a cab minivan (on cell phone??) looks up and over corrects. One jerk right, second jerk left starting to loose it and on the magic 3rd swing its gone and burning tires sideways. I went down left a bit got around it and watched the NASCAR behind me as all lanes on I90 stopped. I don't think anyone hit anyone somehow as I didn't hear 'that sound'. I first experienced this aberration in the early 90s in Orlando in a new 2nd gen FWD Taurus rental car. I noticed that any sudden steering input would translate into EXTREME YAW but the car would basicly stay where it was, just YAW. I relized how scarry and twitchy this car was so I wanted to get a feel for where the limit was so I would be within the SOA. It was so easy to get out of the SOA it was crazy. Even though I was 'testing' in a conscious manner and being totally aware of the 'test' and supposedly knew what I was doing, just 2 sharp steering inputs would get the thing where you almost could not recover it (ask me how I know). I can't immagine how fast you could loose it if you were tired, an inexperienced driver, or on wet road or using a cell phone. (luckily at the time the 2nd gen Taurus came out cell phones were rare by comparison) This type of handling is nothing like any of the RWDs I grew up driving, big Buicks and the like, where the handling was very linear and it was really hard to get into trouble like this. Maybe they were not as "crisp" in handling but I would say they certainly handled better if the defenition for better handling is maintaining full control and not crashing. Anyway I would think that even the Corvair would handle better in this type of scenario than what passes as acceptable in these FWD cars they sell with these odd handling aberrations.
John Lebetski
Woodstock, IL
77 Eleganza II
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